Prayer for a Pandemic

Our Father,


In these strange and uncertain times we see you, and we see that you are a God of both holy anger and of tender mercy.

We thought we were in control, working to make our businesses profitable and fill our leisure hours with activities that felt fulfilling.

We are reminded, as we erase appointments and sign up for Zoom accounts, that man plans his way but you establish our steps. We are reminded that there is much we don’t know, didn’t anticipate, and is in your hands and not ours.

You hear the discussion, oh Lord, about what the right measures to take are. Only a few of us need to decide the steps that will be enforced. Please help these few to be wise in the face of a million unknowns, and please help us to fear you and honor the magistrates (whether we agree with their orders or not.)

Help us to love our neighbor. To think of the elderly and those who live alone, to text or write or call or video chat, to share our toilet paper, to spend some money at the struggling business, to say hello from our six-feet-away jog.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we can love in anxious times - because you first love us. Thank you that you are not apathetic about evil, and we are reminded that in times where everyone does what is right in their own eyes you have often used calamity and suffering to shake our world and our false sense of security.

Thank you for giving many of us more time with our families and in the beauty of your creation, for helping us to see the power of interpersonal contact, and for employers to consider how the demands of family intersect with the demands of employment.

Thank you, God, for your mercy - that you have not brought the judgement day yet. Please help us to take a look at ourselves and to see our need for you. Let us repent from our sins and put our hope and trust in your forgiveness. Let us yearn to be with your people. Let those of us who are not in the habit of gathering to worship press play on a livestream and learn to crave it.

Let us honor the minimum wage employee who we couldn’t function without.

Let us grow in gratitude for the food on our table, the amazing capacity of technology, the luxury of grocery pickup and online shopping.

In the face of sickness, loss, and even inconvenience, humble us, we pray! Let us respect our elders, many of whom have wrestled loneliness and isolation daily. They have lived through poverty and wars, lost loved ones - some have lived sitting in the walls of houses for weeks and months of hiding. Let us give thanks for the grace and richness you’ve given even as we grieve the brokenness of this sin-scarred world.

Help us, oh Father, to turn to you. As we must more often listen to our own thoughts, as we spend more time with our selves, let us confront our hearts with the knowledge that you are always with us. As we rage against the evil of death, as we grieve the loss of fellowship, celebrations, milestones, hopes and plans for these months - may we find comfort in your compassion and your sovereignty. Help us to place our trust in your promises. Thank you for Jesus, who has paid the price for our sins, brings redemption, and promises a full and perfect restoration in the life to come.


Amen.




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